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“I personally feel like it was council incompetence which led to this situation, which now means I am unable to vote.”

The 27-year-old registered to vote online on May 1 and received a generic confirmation letter stating Bristol City Council would be in touch if it needed any further information.

Concerned at the lack of a polling card or any other literature, Mr Whitehouse rang the council on Thursday to check his application has been registered.

The former wrestler, who now works as delivery cyclist for Deliveroo, was horrified to be told the council did require additional proof of identification and the deadline to provide this information had passed just hours earlier.

He said: “The woman I spoke with said that the council had sent me an email asking for more proof or documents and the deadline was at midnight so I had missed it and wasn’t registered.”

Convinced there was some mistake, Mr Whitehouse checked his inbox and could find no proof of the council email.

“I rang the council back and told them that I definitely hadn’t been sent an email,” he said.

“I was going to vote for Labour, and I know mine is just one vote which won’t make much of a difference to the overall result, but I think it is important that people are involved in democracy and that the council should have done more to warn me.”

In response a Bristol City Council spokesperson said: “We have no power over the evidence requirements or deadlines for registering to vote. These are set out in law and ensure a robust, legal election where any risk of voter fraud is minimised.

“In keeping with this, a letter to Mr Whitehouse was printed on 18 May and sent to his registered address by first class post.

“This letter requested further evidence to allow us to complete his voter registration. This is standard procedure where evidence is missing and thousands of voters complete this process each year.

“The statutory deadline passed on 31 May and anyone who did not provide requested documents by this time cannot be registered to vote in the general election on 8 June.”